This blog exists to support liberatory collectivist activism that is anti-patriarchy, anti-colonialism, and anti-capitalism. It also seeks to center the experiences, theories, and agendas of radical and feminist women of color.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Memo to Lewis and Clark "Re-enActors": Genocidalists Are Not To Be Recreated, Just Killed Off

All that follows is from here. You can also click on the original report's heading, just below. Thanks as always to Brenda Norrell for all her great work.

CHAMBERLAIN, S.D.(2004) The American lie of Lewis and Clark unraveled as Lakota, Ponca and Kiowa told re-enactors to turn back downriver or face the consequences.

“What they wrote down was a blueprint for the genocide of my people. You are re-enacting something ugly, evil and hateful,” Carter Camp, Ponca, told the Discovery Expedition camped on the Missouri River.

“You are re-enacting the coming of death to our people,” Camp told the expedition, while seated in a circle with Indian elders and Lewis and Clark re-enactors, on the banks of the Missouri River.

“You are re-enacting genocide.” Deb White Plume of Pine Ridge gave the expedition a symbolic blanket of small pox.

Floyd Hand, among four bands of Lakota here, told the expedition, “We are the descendants of Red Cloud and Crazy Horse.” “I did not come here in peace.” Hand said they would not smoke the pipe today and if the expedition continues up the Missouri River, the families of the expedition members would suffer the spiritual consequences of small pox. Referring to the tribal governments who welcomed the expedition, Hand said those tribal governments reflect the same type thinking as the re-enactors and are not the voice of the grassroots people. “The tribal governments are not a voice for us. They are imitating us, like you are imitating Lewis and Clark.”

“We want you to turn around and go home,” Alex White Plume, Lakota from Pine Ridge, told the expedition. White Plume said Lakota are here on this land for a reason. “We were put here by the spirits.” He said the Lakota never lost their language or ceremonies and now they are making these requests: Lakota want their territory back, their treaties to be honored and to be able to continue their healing ways.

White Plume said many Indian people have become assimilated and colonized.

“We pray for our own colonized people. We say they are in a prison in the white man’s world.

”The state of South Dakota is the most racist state and South Dakota condones this kind of behavior. We want you to know, it has to end here.”

Russell Means said Lewis and Clark, like the myth of Columbus, are apart of the great American lie. And there are many parts to the great American lie. “Even the casino Indians are not rich, that is another falsehood. They don’t ever see cash,” Means said, adding that the money goes to investors and also to the state, which is illegal. Means said Indians can’t even start a business on tribal land without waiting an average of eight years, and then it is only if the paperwork isn’t lost. “What you are perpetuating is part of the big lie,” Means told the re-enactors. Means said Indians have 40 percent of the nation’s natural resources on their lands, yet they are kept in concentration camps called reservations and not allowed to participate. “This is our river,” Means said of the Missouri River running past. He pointed out the water is being used by farmers, cities and power plants without the permission of Indian people.